Essay on Akers' Social Learning Theory

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the social learning theory of crime, and how it relates to certain criminal acts. Ronald Akers would say that a person’s desire to engage in crime is learned “through exposure to and the adoption of definitions favorable to crime” (Cullen, Agnew, & Wilcox 2014, p. 140). When an individual commits a crime they are acting on impulse because of actions they saw others engage in primarily during childhood, and therefore mimic those actions. Akers saw the need to extend Sutherland’s Differential association theory therefore creating a modern viewpoint known as Social learning theory (Cullen, Agnew, & Wilcox 2014). Social learning theory has four main mechanism of learning to describe how crime is learned.

as a general concept, social learning theory has been applied to the many different fields of social science to explain why certain individuals develop motivation to commit (or abstain from) crime and develop the skills to commit crime through the people they associate with. Social Learning Theory (SLT) is one of the most frequently looked at theories in the criminology field. This theory was introduced by Ronald L. Akers as a reformulation of Edwin H. Sutherland 's (1947) differential association theory of crime meld with principles of behavior psychology (Bradshaw, 2011). Akers retained the concepts of differential association and definitions from Sutherland 's theory, but conceptualized them in more behavioral terms and

Throughout this course, we have explored a vast amount of theories, however, Albert Bandura’s Social Learning Theory (SLT) has been the one that intrigued me the most. Bandura’s SLT “strongly emphasized the importance of observational learning and cognitive variables in explaining human behavior (Powell, Honey, & Symbaluk 2017).” According to our readings Bandura agrees with the behaviorist learning theories of classical and operant conditioning, he proposes that the SLT is a result of both person and situation, which does not have the same effect from either component on their own (Powell, Honey, & Symbaluk 2017). One of his most well-known studies involves a bobo doll. In which Bandura demonstrates that when someone observes violent behavior it increases the chances of violence of the spectator, and

And on the other hand how “Code of the Streets” shows links to the Differential Association and Social Learning theories of crime. The Differential Association (closely related to Social Disorganization theory), developed by Edwin Sutherland, and Social Learning theory, developed by Ronald Akers, both theories of crime are theories that try to explain, at a micro-level, why individuals rather than groups of individuals commit crime (Feldmeyer, Differential Association and Social Learning, 2015).

Aker wants people to develop motivation to commit crime, and the skills to commit crime through the people they associate with. The social learning is that when people learn bad behavior by watching others and learning from the social factors in their daily lives. They also see with differential association and imitation can be either positive or negative. On the positive side we see when people are rewarded for their action we began to see more crime occur. Though on the negative side we see can still see a lot of crime occur, but when they know what the consequences are for the crime they are less likely to do it again, or even commit a crime. Though the social learning theory gives us four central concepts. They are differential association,

Social learning theory refers to Akers’ theory of crime and deviance. Akers attempted to specify the mechanism and processes through which criminal learning takes place by explaining crime and deviance; he did this in such a way that the likelihood of conforming or deviant behavior based on the influence of an individual’s history of learning was accounted for. This theory was based off Sutherland’s differential association

Differential association theory best explains the burglary deviance. There are many principles associated with this type of social learning theory. Edwin Sutherland’s theory discusses how crime is a learned

In 1961, the infamous Bobo doll experiment was conducted by Albert Bandura, leading him to create social learning theory. This experiment entailed a group of adults beating up a Bobo doll while children watched. After the adults were finished, the children were let into the room with the Bobo doll. It was observed that the children were copying the adult's behavior beating the Bobo doll. SOURCE. This experiment that Bandura conducted shows that we humans learn social behaviors from observing others. This theory has been applied to criminal justice in that juvenals learn deviant behavior from others actions that they observe. According to Siegel &Welsh (2015). “Social learning theory suggests that adolescents learn the techniques and attitudes of crime from close and intimate relationships with the delinquent peers; delinquency is a learned behavior” (p. 155). This means that the Juvenal, depending on what behaviors of crime and delinquency that their friends and family have will

In this experiment, children were first shown a video of an adult hitting, assaulting, punching and kicking the Bobo doll. Then they were brought into a room and left alone with nothing, no toys but a Bobo doll. Later, the children were seen to imitate the actions of the adult in the video, inflicting violence onto the doll. For observational learning to happen, there must be a motivation for people to perform the action. In this case, the children were left with no toys but the Bobo doll. Additionally, they must also observe the actions, retain the memory to be able to reproduce, imitate and repeat the actions carried out by the adult in the video.

In the Bobo Doll Experiment conducted by Stanford University’s Dr. Albert Bandura the researchers were interested in a few things. The researchers were interested in seeing whether or not, if social behaviors such as aggression can be influenced and acquired by imitation and as well observation. In this study the participants were composed of 36 boys and 36 girls from the nursery on campus, all ranging in the ages from 3 to 6. In this study a tall inflatable plastic toy that were painted as clown, also known as a bobo doll was used. The bobo doll was buoyant and had weight at the bottom which allowed it to stand back up after being knocked down. Moving on the participants were all split into three groups: in which one group observed aggressive

Cognitive theory is one of the five developmental theories in developmental psychology. Found within cognitive theory is social cognitive theory. Social cognitive theory suggests that children and adults can learn novel responses merely by observing the behavior of a model, and make mental notes as they observe these responses. They use these mental representations to reproduce the observed model’s behavior. This theory belongs to psychologist, Alfred Bandura. Bandura thought humans to be cognitive beings and that the information they processed played huge role in their learning and development. One of his known study’s is the Bobo doll study. This study demonstrated that children can display aggressive behaviors through observing aggressive responses without using classical or operant conditioning. In Bandura’s experiment, he had children watch a short clip that included an adult model hitting an inflatable doll with a mallet as well as throwing balls at the doll while shouting random words. Some children saw the adult model being praised and others saw the adult model being punished. In addition, others saw the model receive no consequences for their aggressive actions. After this, children were brought into a playroom filled with the inflatable bobo dolls. Children who saw a rewarded or no-consequence model, acted aggressively. From this scenario, there is also latent learning where there is learning that occurs, but is not evident in the person’s behavior. The children

Akers’ social learning theory’s basic premise is that deviant behavior is learned. The theory has four components. First is definitions, where a person considers his behavior is normal. Definitions can be general or specific.

A well known experiment in the early 1960s, the Bobo Doll experiment, “exposed to children to adults behaving aggressively towards a doll” (Good Therapy, 2007). The children demonstrated the same aggressive behaviors towards the doll, modeled by the adults. That process was called observational learning. Children observe the people around them behaving in various of ways. Models, observed by a child, could be parents, peer groups, teachers at school, or characters on television. “Imitation of models is a key element in how children learn language, deal with aggression, develop a moral sense, and learn gender-appropriate behaviors” (Papalia & Martorell, 2015). Although, the observed behavior is not imitated, observational learning can still occur (Papalia & Martorell,

The Differential Association Theory, established by Edwin Sutherland in 1947, explicit the deviance of an individual's behavior and how it is learned through interaction with others or associations. There are several components that play a role in this theory that determines the main causes of delinquency. One of the components of this theory is, a person do not inherently become a criminal, it is a learned behavior. A person cannot decide one day he wants to commit a crime if he is not influence or challenge by others. When someone engages in criminal acts, they are most likely influence in some way that motivates them to commit the crime.

These results correlate highly with the social learning theory on aggressive behavior. Those exposed to substantial violence and aggression were likely to imitate it later on in life. However, while an observational study can elicit enlightening results, they do not provide much on practical, empirical evidence. What the researchers did was observe behavior exhibited by the individuals they studied; they did not control the amount of violence the individuals were being exposed nor were they preventing others from being exposed to such programming. Thus, this study can not be deemed as an “experiment”. While they tried eliminating the lurking variables that may plague the results of their findings, it would be impossible to eliminate every possible influence other than the television exposure through an observational study.